The series kept basketball fans in France and the United States in suspense. For several months, between the beginning of 2022 and the end of 2023, the pivot Joel Embiid, a player with triple passports – Cameroonian, French and American – left doubt surrounding his choice of selection for the Paris 2024 Games basketball tournament.
At the end of a long suspense, he finally announced in October 2023 that he was opting for Team USA. Just a few days after Jean-Pierre Siutat, president of the French Basketball Federation, was given an ultimatum to the native of Yaoundé in Cameroon.
This Wednesday, during a press conference, Grant Hill, manager of the American team, announced the list of 12 American players selected for this summer’s Olympics. Obviously Embiid is one of the twelve players called up, forming a new “Dream Team”, 32 years after that of the Barcelona Games, with LeBron James, Stephen Curry and even Kevin Durant.
Hill returned to the presence of the 30-year-old pivot, MVP of the 2022-2023 season and NBA star of the Philadelphia 76ers. The way the former Olympic champion in 1996 went about seducing him. “We learned in August or September 2022 that Joel had become an American citizen,” explains Hill. I was aware that he was also in the process of obtaining French nationality. I met with Joel with the help of the Sixers, four days before the start of the 2022-2023 season. I went to his house, we talked well, about our way of seeing things, about the opportunity that presented itself, about the experience that I had myself as an Olympic athlete (in 1996). »
In 2023, Hill tried to summon Embiid for the World Cup. In vain. “He was still undecided,” confides the GM of Team USA. Then last fall when I heard that another country (France) had set a deadline for him to decide, I contacted him again. I secretly traveled to Colorado where the Sixers were having training camp. We had another very good discussion on several topics. I did not force his hand, at no time did I give him an ultimatum. The next day, it was my birthday (October 5), he called me. He wished me a happy birthday and then said “that’s it, I’m going with you guys”. It’s honestly my best gift in many years. »
For his part, Siutat, who explained having helped Embiid in his efforts to become French, said he was “disappointed to have spent so much energy” for the 76ers star.
“We’re looking forward to playing with him, we haven’t had a center like that since 1996 I think, I was on the team, we had Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Shaquille O’Neal. With Embiid, Bam Adebayo and Anthony Davis, we have enormous versatility among our bigs. And we will need it because we will face pivots with varied profiles during the competition,” added Grant Hill. The duel against the France team, led by the duo Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert, is already making fans around the world salivate.
